Making Friends in Madrid

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Making Friends in Madrid

In her own words, UC alum Shauna Dieffenbach '13 discusses her experiences at Utica College studying Spanish and History and how pleasantly surprised she was at the affordability of a UC education.

I had my heart set on going to Utica College, but my parents thought we couldn't afford a private school. After Utica awarded me a scholarship, we made all the calculations and were pleasantly surprised to see that it cost about the same as a larger public university.

I was a foreign languages major and a history minor. It was really challenging because we had to take so many culture and language classes. And my senior thesis had to be a 19-page paper, and the language I chose to write it in was Spanish. My topic was bullfighting in contemporary Spain. It gave me leeway where I could take so many culture classes and I could study abroad, which I did. I went to Madrid to do research. I met so many people. I have Spanish friends now, and we Skype every week, and we just catch up. I want to go back. I would live in Spain because I just love it.

I discovered here that I’m a born leader. I helped to re-establish Circle K my freshman year and then it got officially put as an international chapter last year. I’m not afraid now to stand up for what’s right. I used to be very, very quiet in high school. I would live in theatre and lacrosse, and that was it. I’m very active, and I just never realized how involved I am until I was applying for graduate school and the stuff I was involved with on campus was like a page and a half long. I’ve done Leadership Weekend at UC, which was really, really fun. I did tours and telecounseling for Admissions. That was my chance to show new students why I love this school.

I’m pretty sure if I had gone to another school I wouldn’t have been heard and I wouldn’t be as driven to go out and do the things I did here. This school always pushed me to keep going. Your professors support you.